The Winter Olympics get under way in Sochi, Russia in just a couple of weeks. And while it's usually country first, it's also nice to cheer for Flyers players when they're not going up against the red, white, and blue.
You won't get the chance to cheer for Claude Giroux this year as he was left of the Team Canada roster this morning.
Giroux's hand injury that kept him out of training camp and contributed to his slow start to the season was likely a factor. He's picked his play up a whole lot since his early season scoring drought, but the Canadian coaches decided to go in another direction.
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Jeff Carter made the Canadian team. You can view the full Canada roster here.
That leaves five other Flyers to cheer for in Sochi:
Kimmo Timonen, named Tuesday to Finland; Andrej Meszaros, named Tuesday to Slovakia; Jakub Voracek, named previously to the Czech Republic and Mark Streit, named previously to Switzerland. (Also Michael Raffl)
And former Flyer Jaromir Jagr is basically the President of the Czech Republic, so he's another guy to root for.
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No Claude though, which is a bummer. Although there's still a chance he could be an injury replacement:
Yzerman on TSN: "Claude Giroux's a great player." Hints Giroux could be an injury replacement.
— Nick Cotsonika (@cotsonika) January 7, 2014